Unilever France v. I.G.B. S.r.l., order, UPC Local Division Paris, 24 September 2024, Case no. ORD_52883/2024
Judge-rapporteur Gillet today held that an amendment to a case that only supplements previous claims -in this case the terms of execution of ancillary measures, if they were granted- does not fall within the scope of R. 263 RoP (Leave to change claim or amend case) and therefore does not need to be authorised
Headnote
1. Pursuant R. 263 RoP, a party may only be authorized, by the Court, to change its claims, on the twofold condition that the amendment could not have been made with reasonable diligence at an earlier stage of the proceedings and that it is not such as to disturb in an unreasonable way the conduct of the case.
2. The autorisation given by the Court, under rule R. 263 RdP, only concerns changed claims which have the effect of changing the subject matter and the scope of the dispute.
3. Changed claims that only complete those previously made do not constitute substantial modifications, which are likely to modify and affect the subject matter and the scope of the dispute and only relate to the implementation and enforcement modalities of a possible sentence.
“In this case, in its initial reply brief of 25 April 2024, UNILEVER opposed the ancillary requests for prohibition, recall and destruction made by IGN in the statement of claim, requesting, in the event that the ancillary measures requested by IGB were granted, a deferral of the execution of the prohibition measure, the provision of a guarantee of 2 million euros and a deferral of the execution of the recall measure and the dismissal of the application for destruction.
“The requests amended in UNILEVER’s brief of 2 September 2024 relate exclusively to the terms of execution of these ancillary measures, if they were granted, the defendant in the main proceedings now requesting, in addition to its initial claims on these points, the constitution by IGB of a guarantee of 20 million euros, if the request for a ban on the products alleged to be counterfeit were granted, that of 1 million euros, if the request for a recall of the products were granted, and the constitution of a guarantee of 3 million and a deferral of the execution of the destruction measure.
“These amended claims, which only supplement those previously requested, in addition to being made in the alternative, do not constitute substantial amendments, which are likely to modify and undermine the subject matter of the dispute and its scope and only concern the methods of implementation and enforcement of a possible award.These amended claims, which only supplement those previously requested, in addition to being made in the alternative, do not constitute substantial amendments, which are likely to modify and undermine the subject matter of the dispute and its scope and only concern the methods of implementation and enforcement of a possible award.
“UNILEVER’s amended claims therefore do not fall within the scope of rule R263 RdP and therefore do not need to be authorized, without it being necessary to ensure that they could have been made at an earlier stage of the proceedings, or to verify their consistency with the initial claims presented in defense by UNILEVER, it being noted that, in addition, IGB is perfectly able to respond to them in its next brief to intervene. Therefore, for the above reasons, there is no need to authorise UNILEVER to submit its new applications and to rule on the respective applications of the parties, on the basis of rule R36
RdP.”
[machine translation]
The entire order (in French) can be read here.
